Cambodia's exiled opposition leader gets five years of imprisonment over fake Facebook post

Sam Rainsy and two members of his social media team were guilty of citing the false 1979 border treaty.

Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy in a file photo. He has been given five years in jail for posting fake Facebook postREUTERS/Romeo Ranoco/File Photo

Cambodian court has sentenced five years of jail term to its exiled opposition leader on Tuesday, 27 December for a fake post on Facebook.

Sam Rainsy, who has been living in France since 2015 to avoid arrest in a separate defamation case, along with his two members of social media team – Ung Chung Leang and Sathya Sambath – were found guilty of posting a fake government pledge to dissolve the Southeast Asian country's border with Vietnam

They posted the false 1979 border treaty on the social media site; allegedly to show that Vietnam and Cambodia have agreed to get rid of their mutual boundary.

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court ordered five years of imprisonment to Rainsy and Ung Chung Leang and Sathya Sambath to three years, all in absentia.

However, Rainsy has not commented on the sentencing, but said on Twitter the case against him and the two others had been "fabricated" by a "kangaroo court".

According to reports, Cambodia has fussed for centuries about its much bigger neighbors – Vietnam to the east and Thailand to the northwest – intruding on its territory. The issue remains controversial until date and many Cambodians are doubtful of both countries.

The development followed months of strain between Cambodia's two main political parties – Prime Minister Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party and the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP).